Best Fun Museum Shows (TIE)

Paint on Metal / On the Street: The New York School of Photographers

Staff Pick

Staff PickPaint on Metal
at Tucson Museum of Art

Staff PickOn the Street: The New York School of Photographers
at Center for Creative Photography

Painter Margaret Evangeline shot first and painted later. Photographer Weegee shot first and then printed. These two artists, separated by the chasm of a half-century, were among the stars of the two most exuberant museum shows Tucson has seen in a while. Blockbusters by Tucson standards, Paint on Metal gathered together 70 wild works by almost as many artists; On the Street's 110 photographs joyfully riffed on the city where street photography was practically invented. Julie Sasse, TMA's excellent curator of contemporary art, put together the ambitious Paint on Metal, which showcased genre-jumping artists who slather great strokes of paint on flat sheets of copper or twisted car parts. (Evangeline shot her piece of metal with a gun.) On the Street, co-curated by CCP's Doug Nickel and Britt Salvesen, jostled with all the energy of New York City itself. Weegee caught everything from bathing-suited revelers crammed subway-like onto the Coney Island beach, to a dead man sprawled on the sidewalk, blood leaking from his head. Drawn entirely from the center's own collections, the show also featured biggies Walker Evans, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand.